Carve your name into my arm (instead of stressed I lie here charmed)
by ibuzoo
Summary: "She's a threat and we need to get rid of her." There's a flicker of something foreign in Rodolphus' eyes and he observes his brother with an intense dark stare which makes him feel intimidated and threatened. He's flabbergasted when Rodolphus speaks again, calm with a certain kind of bite behind his words, "Are you jealous?" He opens his mouth, but not a single word comes out.


**Carve your name into my arm (instead of stressed I lie here charmed)**

**Prompt:** Motivation

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** Modern AU / Organised Crime / Bisexuality / Murder /

**Word count:** 1374

**A/N:** This is the next part of the Cupid-Verse and it fits as the first instalment so far because it's from Rabastan Lestrange's view when Tom introduces Hermione to the group. You'll see that he loathes her from the start but perhaps he learns to accept her at Tom's side (perhaps not, who knows).

* * *

><p><strong>o.<strong>

"This is Hermione."

The girl's face looks hard around the edges, the softness of her flesh almost nonexistent as she purses her lips, presses them into a thin fine line that says nothing at all. She clings at Tom's arm but it's not the usual way a damsel would claw, her perfect manicured nails in the expensive fabric of his Yves Saint Laurent shirt, no. Rabastan observes the way her hand rests barely on his biceps - probably to reassure him of her presence - and her perfume filled the room with an utterly disgusting scent, something pure and far too sweet that reminded him of a mixture between honey and lilies.

He breaths it into his lungs, lets it simmer.

And then he turns around and leaves the room.

* * *

><p><strong>i.<strong>

"Has anyone seen him?", Rabastan asks through the room and he observes the way Abraxas tenses up, turns his head as if to avoid to answer this question at all. Tom had never been too late for one of their meetings before and he doesn't like the suspicious feeling that spreads in his gut, the nagging conscious that something is definitely wrong these days.

Even Bellatrix addresses herself to her double espresso mocha latte and ignores him completely while Rosier fills a glass with a strong amber liquid, hands it over the table so Rabastan can take it before the man answers with a strangely amused glimmer in his dark eyes, "He's with Hermione."

He feels a bunch of burning glances in his back, a piercing presence while everyone waits for him to rage or flip - but he breathes, deep, constrained and a second later the glass in his hand splits. The shards cut bleeding traces in his palm but he shakes them off, turns around and shuts the door.

_(he can still hear Rodolphus' voice ringing in his ears, a deep rumble that reminds him that Tom will be furious if he leaves but Rabastan doesn't care, doesn't listen, just leaves)_

* * *

><p><strong>ii.<strong>

"She's a menace", he spits and Rodolphus sighs, exasperated, before he takes the antiseptic to clean the cuts on Rabastan's skin, dabs the blood and ichor with a puffy white cotton ball.

"She's not. She's his girlfriend", he takes a lattice to bandage the damaged hand but Rabastan pulls his hand away, vents his rage and hisses between closed teeth, "She's a threat and we need to get rid of her."

There's a flicker of something foreign in Rodolphus' eyes and he observes his brother with an intense dark stare which makes him feel intimidated and threatened. He's completely flabbergasted when Rodolphus speaks again, calm as the night with a certain kind of bite behind his words, "Are you jealous?"

He opens his mouth, but not a single word comes out.

* * *

><p><strong>iii.<strong>

He loves Tom, all of them do in a variety of ways - Abraxas buys his favourite kind of coffee each morning (black, no milk, two sugars), Bellatrix backs him up and Greyback breaks bones and teeth at anyone who dares to step in his way - small gestures but they're still there, they still count. This organisation that Tom built is everything Rabastan lives for; it's his heart, his blood, his life.

Everything he does, he does for Tom.

Everything he breathes for, he breathes for Tom.

Tom is the organisation, Tom is his home, Tom is his destiny, Tom is his future.

And he'll never accept anyone that comes between.

Never.

* * *

><p><strong>iv.<strong>

The problem is…

No, scratch that.

They have another meeting at their house and Bellatrix wears nothing more than a black satin powdering gown that reaches just to her knees when she opens the door, lets the others in. Hermione enters the room at her side and Rabastan breathes in, deep and he scrunches his nose right after her perfume hits his nostrils, the same overly sweet scent blooming around her.

It's disgusting.

Tom and the others follow a second later and they don't waste another minute, start talking instantly about the job that Nott screwed up the night before. They discuss their further plans and how to deal with the witness when she reaches out, stops Tom mid-sentence and says with a voice that's far too big for her small body, "How about you dig up some dirt about his past?"

There's a fracture of a second silence, plain simple silence and Rabastan holds his breath, watches horrified as Tom turns around and kisses her, hard, eager, wild.

_(he doesn't know how long he held his breath but the moment he let it out he felt it burn through his lungs and airways, corroding his windpipe until it felt like raw meat)_

* * *

><p><strong>v.<strong>

The problem is that she's not a fling anymore, not a miscalculation he can scratch off or deal later with it.

The problem is the thing between them - whatever it may be - is serious now.

And Rabastan can't change anything about it.

* * *

><p><strong>vi.<strong>

"I said we should get rid of her weeks ago", Rabastan says aggrieved and takes a deep gulp of his drink, swallows the Whisky that leaves a tickling sensation in the back of his mind. Abraxas laughs, throat wide against the open night sky and he watches his clean shaved chin when it moves in unison. He brushes a hand over his dark green shirt to brush some dust crumbs off, grumbles darkly and murmurs, nearly scowls, "Nobody listens to me."

* * *

><p><strong>vii.<strong>

Rabastan's dark navy suit blends him into the night while streetlights cast white shapes where his hands emerge from his cuffs as well as along his narrow jaw and his slender throat. He feels Hermione's gaze in the back of his neck which raises his hackles and it's annoying, really, that he of all people needs to look after her tonight.

"Beautiful night, isn't it?", he murmurs; a little cruel smirk lingers on his full lips and Hermione's dark brown eyes narrow, skeptical.

"It's not like you would notice something like that."

"I'm not entirely without gentler feeling", he takes his gun out of the hidden spot in his coat, turns around and shoots without a second thought just mere millimetres past her delicate face. The bullet graces her cheek and behind her a man falls down, clutches his chest while a death rattle shakes his whole body - Hermione however doesn't even blink, just stares blankly at him, almost eager.

Beads of sweat form at the join of his spine and his skull, something shifts minutely like a tipping balance and he watches a droplet of blood that rolls from her full cheek.

It's the start of his doubt.

* * *

><p><strong>viii.<strong>

Rabastan looks out of his window and watches people rushing by one by one with overloaded arms and shopping bags of different kinds of labels. He's quiet, unmoved and Bellatrix sighs behind him, clicks her tongue on her palate before she leans in beside him, leans her head on the glass of the window, "She's not that bad, you know?"

I know, he thinks but with his lips rest pressed together, no sound escapes, I know, that's the problem.

* * *

><p><strong>ix.<strong>

Hermione sits on the couch with her legs crossed at the knees, a bowl of blackberries in her slender hands and Rabastan stops halfway over the threshold, top button of his shirt undone to show just a hint of his collarbone. She pats the place next to her with a secret smile that curls in the half-dark - it reminds him of a predator, a raptor and he follows her lead, crosses the room to sit down beside her. When their shoulders brush she holds the bowl out for him, dark stains on the tip of her fingers, "Want some?"

He hesitates at first, weighs his options and takes a hand full in the end, eats them one by one until the juice stains the inside of his mouth.

* * *

><p><strong>x.<strong>

The problem is that he tries to hate her.

_(the cuts of slicing sarcastic words leave scars which prove he does)_

The problem is that he can't.

_(she's far too perfect for Tom and therefore far too perfect for each one of them)_

* * *

><p><strong>xi.<strong>

_(she's far too perfect for him too, but he'd never admit that, ever)_


End file.
